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Malaria's dangerous neighborhood

The var genes of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum encode the major variable parasite protein and are expressed in a mutually exclusive manner at the surface of an infected red blood cell. In the 26 October Nature, Freitas-Junior et al. report that Plasmodium uses nuclear architecture in a pathogen survival strategy (Nature 2000, 407:1018-1022). The sub-telomeric regions that contain the var genes are clustered together at the nuclear periphery, apparently allowing recombination at frequenciesmuch higher than those expected from homologous crossover events alone.

References

  1. Nature, [http://www.nature.com/nature/]

  2. A genetic map and recombination parameters of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum.

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Wells, W. Malaria's dangerous neighborhood. Genome Biol 1, spotlight-20001031-02 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20001031-02

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/gb-spotlight-20001031-02

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